Winter’s Children: Curl up with this gripping, page-turning mystery as the nights get darker. Leah Fleming

release, I beg you. It is all I have of value but if you do my bidding I will reward you tenfold.’

      He moved forward and nodded and she could see that he was sore tempted by the offer and his own discomfort. ‘'Tis less than four miles back over the moor towards Settle and beyond on the high road. Miss Anona must be safe housed at Wintergill with my kin.’ Mama was pleading now, sniffing her daughter’s golden curls that frizzed up in the damp air.

      ‘I don’t like it here, Mama,’ she wept.

      ‘I know, but think about that first yuletide when the Holy Mother laid her baby in a manger for there was no room for them at the inn. Here we are in a stable just like them and you smell like a new-born calf, not of our hearth and home or fresh rosemary water. Father Michael will take care of us,’ Mama cried.

      That was no comfort, for he was old and sick, but Nonie thought of Jesus in the stable and tried to take heart. They were close enough to the night brazier to glean some warmth for chapped hands and feet. It would be a long night and she was so tired as she lay now strangely at peace with the world in her mother’s lap.

      ‘Hold on to hope, little one. When Aunt Hepzi hears what has become of us, she’ll noise abroad what this parson has done. Surely the Justice will be lenient, especially if he is in sympathy with the King’s lost cause. There are many such hidden in these northern hills. We will not be harmed.’

      She watched the goose feathers of snow settling over carts and rooftops, across the courtyard where the sound of a fiddle rent the chill air. How quickly the white covered their muddy tracks. She could not believe that they were come into this sorry state. Surely it was all some terrible nightmare and she would wake up with the curtains of her four-poster bed tightly drawn against the draughts?

      Thomas shook them both at first light. ‘Mistress Norton, I’ve found someone who travels northwards with a cart. He says that they will relay your daughter but only to the inn at the crossroads by the marketplace. She must make her own way from there to Wintergill. It is the best I can do, but no word of this to anyone and I shall say she has slipped away in the night.’ The man turned from her in shame, speaking softly. ‘I thought that this was but a prank to shock you, mistress, not to lead us all abroad on fearful business in such fierce weather.’

      ‘Thank you, Thomas, I shall not forget your mercy. Wake up, little one, wake …’ Mama roused her daughter into life. ‘Now listen to Mama … you will go back with the carter to Settle and make your way to the wise woman’s house down the passageway into Kirkgate. Tell Goody Preston, the seamstress, what has happened and ask her to send word to Wintergill. Lodge with her until Mistress Snowden sends for you and wait for me there. Do you hear what I say? Do not venture out on your own. Tell the goodwife I shall pay her for all your care when I return.’